Cooking with love

Friday 13 January 2012, 01:51PM

Executive Chef Khun Ooy with freshly made spring rolls.

People working at the Andara Resort on Millionaires’ Mile in Kamala say the smiling face and warm personality of executive chef Supreeda ‘Ooy’ Khemkhang is largely responsible for the success of the resort’s Silk restaurant.

Certainly, from the minute I first meet Chef Ooy she is beaming, and totally friendly and relaxed.

Chef Ooy is also modest. It’s her team who makes her happy, she says, and a happy chef translates into good food. And good food it is indeed, with Silk restaurant having a fine name among the island’s expats.

Her personality and cooking talent led to Chef Ooy effectively being headhunted by one of Asia’s most high-profile businessmen, Allan Zeman.

Chef Ooy has come a long way from her days training to be a waitress at a technical college in Songkhla province. As part of the two-year hospitality certificate, she found herself completing her training at the Holiday Inn in Patong.

While she was here she was spotted by the head chef, who said “You can cook, I’m sure. I’ve got a position for you.” Her first job was working in the cold kitchen at the hotel but she learned fast and other jobs followed, at the Layan Beach Resort and then later at Amanpuri. She was working in the kitchen at Amanpuri when Dr Zeman was a guest at an event there. Impressed with the cuisine, he contacted Chef Ooy at least four times to ask her to consider becoming his private chef in his Phuket residence.

She turned him down, but he then made an offer she found she could not refuse: head chef at Silk. She accepted and has been running the restaurant ever since.Dishes on the menu are a mix of Western and Thai.

Chef Ooy says the Thai dishes are a mix of recipes created by her mother and ones she devised herself. The restaurant’s signature dishes include Goong Sarong (prawns wrapped with Phuket noodles served with a homemade mango sauce) Miang Pla Grob (Deep fried white snapper with ginger, lemongrass and cashew nuts). Another dish which Chef Ooy rates as one of her best is the Massaman curry with sweet potatoes and peanuts.